College

This week, Trent made his college decision and accepted admission into the University of Maryland's A. James Clark School of Engineering. Trent wants to be a mechanical engineer.

Trent made his application decisions without visiting any schools. In the beginning, we didn't understand how competitive Trent's application might be. He attends a very small school on Maryland's Eastern Shore. He has a 4.0 GPA. If his school recognized a valedictorian, he would be it. His school offers neither an International Baccalaureate program nor any AP classes. They only have about 50 students total, including just six seniors. We weren't sure how that would appear to a college admissions officer.

Trent applied to some schools with high acceptance rates like University of Maryland, Eastern Shore and Salisbury University. For those schools, he's a local who has done well and we were confident he could get in. He applied to some competitive schools including University of Maryland, College Park and University of Delaware. I'd like to think Trent wanted to stay close to home to be near his parents, but it seems likely that he chose these schools because they are close to where Lizzie, his girlfriend of over a year, lives and goes to school.

Trent's application must have been strong enough, because he got into all those schools. His decision came down to Maryland vs. Delaware – the two engineering schools. We toured both schools. I was used to the neo-Gothic limestone of Virginia Tech so both schools' Georgian brick architecture was new to me. Electric scooters crowded Maryland's sidewalks. Trent thought Delaware's campus seemed empty, probably because our tour was during their brief winter session in early January. That might be unfair, but he pointed out that they didn't have to offer tours when the campus was empty. We were both surprised that Maryland, despite being in session, didn't seem crowded, even with 40,000 students.

From a parental point of view, Maryland seemed like the straightforward choice. It's more prestigious, in-state, and costs about half as much. That's a good education to dollar ratio. Trent was on the fence for about a month before finally settling on Maryland. He's interested in joining their fencing club.